Colossal athletes fill these modern arenas
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Emmanuel Morgan
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INGLEWOOD – The television monitors, Skee-Ball machine and in-house DJ can make Cosm feel like any other sports bar when you first walk inside.
But above the escalators, a 1,000-inch domed screen made up of magnetised LED panels lets fans watch sporting events as if they have courtside seats or are behind home plate. Immersive vantage points offer top-dollar views that could be unfolding in a stadium thousands of kilometres away.
“It’s pretty sick,” said Michael del Real, 26, from the virtual front row of a recent National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the New York Knicks and the Dallas Mavericks.
He and other spectators in Inglewood, California, were nowhere near the Texas arena, but they could still hear players’ sneakers squeaking and see the rim shaking after a dunk.
They gazed up to watch the floor-to-ceiling screen showcasing larger-than-life athletes.
“It’s like you’re there almost,” said del Real, who was watching a game at Cosm for the fourth time. “To experience it like this for half the price, it’s pretty awesome.”
Jeb Terry, Cosm’s chief executive officer, was a National Football League (NFL) offensive lineman for three seasons before becoming an entrepreneur and media executive, including a stint at Fox Sports.
He and a business partner founded the company in 2020 after acquiring Evans & Sutherland, which focused on planetarium displays.
“The planetarium takes you to space and now Cosm takes you to the sidelines,” Terry said. “It’s the same transport of nature.”
Although Cosm is often compared to Sphere, the giant domed entertainment hall in Las Vegas, its buildings are smaller and do not host original musical performances.
The first location opened in Inglewood in 2024, followed by one near Dallas, and the company has plans to build in Atlanta, Detroit and Cleveland.
Pricing varies by seat and event. General admission tickets can begin at around US$10 (S$13), while prime seating for the World Series
In 2020, Cosm built a test facility in Salt Lake City to fine-tune its product and showcase it to potential investors.
When Teddy Kaplan, the NBA’s vice-president of new media partnerships, visited a few years later, he was shown footage from an NBA game and the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
He was particularly impressed, though, when the domed screen transformed into a high-resolution recreation of Michelangelo’s fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel.
“That is seared into my memory as something that really showed to me that this wasn’t just a sports or entertainment experience, this is an educational experience,” Kaplan said.
The NBA became Cosm’s first official partner. The company also has partnerships with the NFL, World Wrestling Entertainment and NBC Sports that allow it to film sporting events and show them simultaneously at its venues.
Cosm sends small camera crews to collect footage from desirable angles, such as the 50-yard line of a football game.
During the Knicks-Mavericks game, the camera alternated between shots from behind the basketball rim, from near courtside seats and from an overhead view of the arena. Producers decide which angles to show from a facility about 6.5km away.
Devin Poolman, the company’s chief product and technology officer, said its philosophy was different from that of a typical TV broadcast.
“Instead of trying to chase the action each moment by moment, we’re trying to give you the best seat in the house for that period of time,” he said.
To reach different audiences, Cosm recently began showing movies such as The Matrix and Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory through a deal with Warner Bros Discovery.
The movies are shown in a rectangular format and complemented with graphics of animated gadgets and chocolate waterfalls. Later in 2026, it will begin screenings from the Harry Potter franchise.
Terry wants to expand into more than 10 venues, including international markets. The next frontier, he said, could be beaming in feeds from musical performances, so fans in Georgia could watch the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Until then, sports fans will be Cosm’s primary audience. “We have the opportunity to deliver on something that can be an incredible experience,” Terry said, for those “who might not be able to get to the game itself”.
After the Knicks defeated the Mavericks, some fans stayed to take pictures in front of the enormous screen. They were near Los Angeles while the DJ played New York, New York. NYTIMES
